Advocates of higher taxes are making an all-out push this week to get their so-called “Fair Tax Amendment” on the Nov. 4 ballot.

They want to replace the state’s constitutionally mandated flat income tax, now at a personal rate of 5 percent, with a graduated income tax. They’re selling it as a way to force “the wealthy” pay their “fair share,” buzz phrases that as yet have no legal definition.

The overall purpose is to raise billions in new revenue with no requirement that Illinois’ high property taxes be reduced.

And in all probability, if this passes, middle-class taxpayers who are just scraping by will discover that they’re “wealthy.”

To get on the fall ballot so voters can decide its ultimate fate, the measure must pass the General Assembly by three-fifths majorities in the House and Senate by Sunday. All Republicans are opposed, but the bill has enough Democratic votes to pass the Senate.

In the House, however, Speaker Michael Madigan doesn’t have the votes and might not call it. Unless a Republican commits political suicide by agreeing to vote “yes,” the bill won’t pass.

Here’s why: Democrats have 71 members, barely a three-fifths majority. But state Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, is so solidly against raising any state taxes that if he were to switch sides, it would be like the Tea Party endorsing Obamacare.

Franks, a reformer who was the first legislator to call for Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s impeachment, believes strongly that Illinois government is irresponsible, labyrinthine and directionless. It doesn’t deserve more money.

“I told Madigan I won’t do it. I don’t think we should be asking for additional revenue when we aren’t spending what we have wisely. Our budgetary system is an absolute mess. We ought to do (two-year) budgets instead of reactive political budgets,” Franks said Monday from his law office in Marengo.

“There’s very little emphasis on results. No goals. We have self-perpetuating line items that keep going on without scrutiny,” he added, and gave an example of that lack of scrutiny from a hearing in which he asked officials from Central Management Services, which is in charge of state-owned property, how much land the state owns.

“They said they had no idea. I asked why, and they said their consultant told them it would cost $5 million to buy software to find out,” Franks said. “I went nuts and demanded they tell us in two weeks what we own.”

Franks recommends that the state abolish the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity “and save $1 billion instead of cutting these sweetheart deals for multinational corporations who don’t even pay taxes.”

He criticized the privatization of the lottery, saying the hired company is not meeting its goals while charging the state as much as $100 million a year to manage the game that creates long lines at gas stations.

“We are paying them to underperform. If our lottery were managed efficiently, like lotteries in Massachusetts and Georgia, we should be making $1 billion more a year from it.”

Franks says the budget should reflect the state’s priorities,” but if you look at our budget, you can’t tell what our priorities are. I don’t want to reward mismanagement. I respect taxpayers too much to allow them to transfer more money to a state that hasn’t adequately managed its money.”

Franks also opposes making the 5 percent income tax permanent. Formerly 3 percent, the 67 percent increase was passed in 2011 as a temporary measure to pay a backlog of bills the state owed to service providers. Gov. Pat Quinn promised the increase was only temporary. The 5 percent personal rate is supposed to go down to 3.75 percent in 2015.

“Instead of paying bills, pretty much all the tax increase went to pay pensions, and we’re in a worse position now than when we passed it,” Franks said.

“At a time when people have less to spend, government should have less, too.”

Bottom line, said Franks, “is that I treat every dollar as though it’s my own. Gov. Quinn looks at every dollar as other people’s money. Things would be a lot different if I were on the second floor in the Capitol.”